A nine-year-old girl had to be hospitalised after she was raped by a neighbour at his house in outer Delhi’s Samaypur Badli on Saturday afternoon, police said.
The crime came to light on the eve of six years of gang rape and murder of a physiotherapist inside a private bus in south Delhi.
The alleged perpetrator, who police said is unemployed, committed the crime on the ground floor of his house even as his wife and two-year-old daughter were upstairs in the same building, said Rajneesh Gupta, deputy commissioner of police (Rohini).
“The suspect’s wife was unaware of the crime being committed by her husband. It appears she got to know of it only after the word about it spread in the neighbourhood,” said the DCP.
The 28-year-old suspect managed to escape before he could be caught by local residents and before a police team reached the spot. He was nabbed later in the day and the police have booked him for rape and under sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The DCP said the girl is stable and out of danger.
The girl lives with her parents who work as daily wage earners. She was playing outside her home on Saturday afternoon when the suspect allegedly lured her on the pretext of playing with her. Since the girl knew him from before, it was easy for the suspect to lure her, said the officer.
The man allegedly took her to his house, a couple of lanes away from her shanty, and raped her. The crime came to the notice of her relatives when she walked out of the house crying.
“She told her family about the crime and also revealed the identity of the perpetrator. Her uncle made the police call around noon,” said the officer.